Tomarry / Harrymort One Shots

Dead Soul

"Why aren't you dead?" asks Voldemort, his red eyes blazing with anger and confusion. His very bony and pale hand clutching the official papers, bluish veins popping up with the tight grip of his hands. 

"You were dead, Harry. I saw to that. I buried you under the willow."

Harry smiles sweetly.

Oh, how he pities the living. For they do not understand the blissful death and instead fear it.

Oh, how he pities Tom, that poor lost soul. So broken and so scared. How he wishes to embrace him. If Voldemort is willing, Harry would keep his soul, or what remains of it after being ripped apart many times, safe and sound and take him through the realm of death.

But obviously, Tom will never want that.

He had always been too afraid of death.

"Dead. I am dead," Harry clarifies, his lips curving upwards as he smiles gently once again.

"But you, Tom, you are alive. Tom is alive." Voldemort looks at him disbelievingly.

Harry has always thought that there's a sort of beauty in his red eyes, even long before the war. Then, they reminded him of the roses on aunt Petunia's bushes. But now, they look like the spider lilies from the bank of that river of forgetfulness. Blood red, enchanting and soulful.

Ironic, for a man with barely a soul.

"Of course, I am alive." Voldemort narrows his eyes, staring at the impossible boy in front of him. He has tried to touch him, but his hand went through that boy as if he is not there. As if he is a ghost.

He doesn't have any reason to try it again.

"Are you a ghost? No, no. You aren't. You do not have that translucent form. Nor the ability to float like them. I've seen you walk. What are you? A shade? A memory?" Voldemort blunts out, a rare show of confusion clear on his face.

"No, no, dear Tom. You've got it all wrong." Harry shakes his head. " All wrong."

Voldemort feels his irritation spark bright.

"If you do not elaborate, then your friends will suffer," Voldemort threatens, elder wand falling from his wrist into his grip. He wouldn't hesitate to harm one of the boy's friends if he can get his answers he desperately needs. 

"I have the Weasleys and the mudblood girl. Or is it the Longbottom boy you're close to? do you not fear for their lives, Harry?"

The boy who died laughs. It is a soft sound, gentle as the north wind and sweet as the chimes of bells. Yet somehow it is very spine chilling. It sounds otherworldly as if the medium of this world is not for the dead boy to use to transmit sounds. 

It really isn't.

"Oh, Tom. Oh, Tom." He exclaims, a hand on his heart—there, Voldemort put a stake to ensure the dead boy wouldn't rise again—, the other stretched out as if beckoning Voldemort to take it.

Voldemort doesn't. 

"The dead do not care, Tom. The dead, us, the dead cease to care for others. All they care for is their own soul." At that Harry stares into Voldemort's eyes, as if he can see something, a heart perhaps or something else, inside him.

"We care for not the living nor the dead. We care for what we care."

The boy is still staring into his eyes. The unnerving green shade makes Voldemort to turn his eyes away and look at anything else but that. Does Voldemort have a heart? Voldemort doesn't know and doesn't want to know. 

But whatever Harry-the-no-longer-living cares? Oh, Voldemort truly wants to know what that might be.

"Then why are you here? You should be in whatever realm the dead go when they die. Or is there any matter you desired to do when alive that you couldn't finish?" asks Voldemort, frowning. What tethers the boy? What kind of desire unfulfilled is so strong to create this impossible dead thing?

And he realizes how stupid that question really is.

Of course, the boy has so many things he hadn't done. He was pretty desperate to protect his friends when alive. He was always trying to stop Voldemort so that the Wizarding Britain would not fall into his hands. He must've had so many wishes unfulfilled, so many regrets tying him to this world as tethers.

And therefore, here he is, not exactly a ghost, and much more than a mere shade, haunting Voldemort. Why him of all people, he doesn't know. He had always figured out difficult questions and mysteries given enough time in the past. He is not a Dark Lord for nothing. But he somehow suspect that this impossible boy will be the first and the only puzzle he can't solve.

Equal to the Dark Lord, indeed.

And he is utterly wrong. Death and what comes after don't exactly work that way. Harry knows that. Voldemort does not and will not know of the afterlife. Nor he will know about death and dying. For he fears it and runs from it.

"My old friends are safe. Or the safest they could ever be. But I no longer care for them. I have told you again and again, Tom. Dead things do not care for anything." Harry-the-not-ghost explains. Ha also sighs as if he was fondly exasperated with Voldemort. As if he was a devoted lover scolding the love of his life.

Voldemort takes in a deep breath and exhales through his mouth. He summons a glass of whiskey and drinks it straight, eyes closed as if he is trying to pretend that Harry isn't really here.

Harry is vividly reminded of the time when he was locked in the attic of the orphanage during a storm because he was caught stealing sweets from Sister Nancy's stash. Harry really loathes that particular memory.

He could still feel the cane on his back and the weight of eight heavy books in his hands. But what he hates the most is being stuck in the attic, dark and alone, with thunders roaring all night. The realization that he was unloved so much hit him so hard that night. The fact that there's no room for the weaker frightened him for he was truly weak.

And how did Harry deal with it?

Harry pretended that there was no storm. He pretended that he was on his bed, but still his, iron bed. It at least calmed him down enough to fall to sleep. Yet it still isn't a good memory, and he doesn't want to see the second coming of it.

"Stop hiding away. You cannot change anything, Tom. It's fate." Harry whispers softly, his voice still otherworldly and chilling, but kinder. He puts his hand on Voldemort shoulder, soothing him but Voldemort can't feel him or his hand. "Fate's will is unchangeable. You may try but you will surely fail for you cannot run away from fate forever."

Voldemort opens his eyes and looks at him, surprised at something but definitely not at his previous words. Tom tries to touch Harry's hand and instead his finger goes right through him. He does it again and again or at least three times until he gives up, slumped in his armchair.

"You aren't of this world, you impossible boy. Yet something tethers you to this realm of living." Voldemort mutters, red eyes vacant, lost in his own thoughts. He taps on the table. "And if I'm not mistaken, then i am the tether of you to this world."

Harry smiles. His smile is so bright for a dead person. Voldemort feels a queasy disgust swell in his stomach. "You're correct, Tom. You got it right this time!"

Voldemort stands up and walks towards the window. He pulls apart the curtains and let the warm sunshine in. Not that Harry can feel it anymore. But it's always nice to see the sun shine bright.

If he tries, he might be able to remember how the sun would make his skin warm and tan. Summer quidditch games with the Weasley were something his unfeeling heart will always cherish as good memories.

"Why am I your tether?" Voldemort inquires, his eyes not moving from whatever he's watching from that window, but his attention is obviously on Harry.

Harry laughs again. It sounds like the melodious chimes of a thousand bells.  He sounds more amused than anything else. Then, he smiles gently and —oh it feels like the warmth of the sun—and says, almost a whisper, "Figure it out yourself, dearest."